


Another Death In The Family

by TheUnexeptionalAuthor



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Again, Bad Parent Talia al Ghul, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Depressed Jason Todd, Dick and Babs dont come up often but I thought I should add it, Gen, Heavy Angst, I'll leave you to figure out which character, Intense, Jason Todd Has PTSD, Jason Todd-centric, Jason is dying, Kinda, Lazarus Pit (DCU), Lazarus Pit Madness, Major Character Injury, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sick Jason Todd, Sickfic, but like, everyone has PTSD, god so much angst, honestly, i just think they're cute - Freeform, none of the ships come up very much, somebody get me off dc tiktok before I actually become a productive writer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:47:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28254873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheUnexeptionalAuthor/pseuds/TheUnexeptionalAuthor
Summary: "I did not come here to fight, Detective.""Then what did you come here for?""The pit is dying. Myself, Talia and Damian will be fine, of course. Evolutionary adaptation.""Why should I care?""You will find that Jason is not quite as lucky as we Al-Ghuls, Detective."
Relationships: Barbara Gordon/Dick Grayson, Carrie Kelley/Harper Row, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Jason Todd & Damian Wayne, Jason Todd & Everyone, Kate Kane/Julia Pennyworth, Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Comments: 10
Kudos: 179





	1. The Information

**Author's Note:**

> This is entirely fixation_or_infatuation's fault. Bri lures you in with jokes about Mystic Messanger and Jason doing dumb shit, and then BAM! 24 parter that makes my writer brain go brrrrrrrr.

Ra's Al-Ghul had some fucking nerve walking into Gotham in broad daylight. Well, it wasn't quite daylight, it was more so simply daytime in the constantly twilit hellscape that looks as if the Art Deco Movement and Soviet Brutalism had a one night stand in a wrought-iron-and-gargoyle factory. That particular description was courtesy of a pissy Jason, about a year before this specific event. 

Ra's waited in front of Wayne Manor as though he were a normal visitor. He knocked on the door and was greeted by the Bat, fully costumed, and already going in for a swing. Ra's dodges, of course.

"I did not come here to fight, Detective." He rolled his eyes, looking exceptionally bored.

"Then what did you come here for?" Bruce is tired. He just put Crane away for what feels like the millionth time, and while he thinks he and Dick building an immunity to the original fear toxin formula, he knows his children aren't quite so lucky. For an Al-Ghul -No, for  _ Ra's Al-Ghul _ \- to show up at his door feels cruel. Perhaps not unusual, but cruel all the same.

"The pit is dying. Myself, Talia and Damian will be fine, of course. Evolutionary adaptation." The words slipped out of the man's silver tongue, and Bruce felt a wave of relief. Maybe Ra's would be a bit easier to take down now. He knows he shouldn't but he's considered letting Tim, or even Damian lay the man to rest. The same way he wished he could allow Jason to put a bullet between Jack Napier's eyes. But Bruce knows that it would corrupt them, and by whatever cosmic force still answered prayers, he loved his kids too damn much to let them kill someone.

"Why should I care?" Bruce settled. Ra's had just told him that Damian would be fine, and he held no love in his heart for Ra's, or his psychopathic assassin daughter. 

"You will find that Jason is not quite as lucky as we Al-Ghuls, Detective." Fuck. Fuck, fuck,  _ fuck _ \- Bruce didn't even care to check if it was true.

"Get out of my city, Al-Ghul." In true Ra's Al-Ghul fashion, Bruce heard a helicopter whir and saw a ladder drop, onto which Ra's jumped, being pulled into the skies from Wayne Manor's front yard. 

Ra’s was not gone very long before Bruce changed into a business suit and was driving haphazardly through Gotham to Jason’s apartment. It was the farthest from the Manor, at Jason’s insistence, but it was still quite nice for Gotham. 

When he reached Jason’s apartment, the lights were on. Not very bright, but they were on. Great. Awesome. Maybe Ra’s was bluffing. 

So he slowly opened the door, creeping inside as though Jason was still small and he was checking on him in his room as he slept. 

“Jason?” He called. He’s fine, Bruce. You are being irrational. 

The house was dimly lit and covered wall to wall in bookshelves. There were a few Chinese takeout boxes lying on different surfaces, which Bruce would scold Jason for later because he would be able to because his son was  _ fine _ . 

There were windows. Exits. One facing the street and one facing the alleyway. 

“I’m in here!” Came a croaking voice. His son! His boy! Robin! Wait, croaking? Why was Jason croaking? Maybe it was the flu? Ra’s must have been bluffing. Come on, think!

He found Jason in a sorry state, with his eyes shut and his headphones in, he was tight in bed with an icepack over his forehead. His face was flushed and the scene reminded Bruce of when Jason had gotten sick as Robin. How they had watched movies and skipped patrol. How, back then, skipping a night wasn’t that big of a deal.

“Jason? Are you doing alright?”   
  


“B? Is that you?”

Jason opened his eyes, and Bruce stumbled back. Jason’s eyes had been a bit more turquoise than blue after he was resurrected from the pit, but this was entirely different.

His pupils were dilated heavily, his sclera was entirely red, and his iris was bright green. No, not bright. Damian’s eyes were bright. Green and inquisitive and intelligent. Jason’s eyes were neon, and they shone. His eyes were projecting green onto the rest of his face as though they were lamps. No. no. nononono _ no _ -

But Jason seemed to be unaware, as he looked frightened.

“B? I- what are you doing in my apartment?

“You’re ill, Jason.” But it sounded more like he was saying it to himself. Not that the sickly boy noticed. And he was, then, just a boy. Perhaps the Red Hood was a man, but Jason was a boy. Bruce’s boy. The one he raised. The one he lost. And Bruce would be damned if he lost him again.

“Uh, yeah. But it doesn’t feel like the flu or anything. I was hoping to wait it out.” Jason had meant to tell Bruce, or Dick, or even Tim that he was feeling ill, really he had. But even that felt like too much effort. The only thing he could compare the way his skin burned was The Pit, but that would be crazy, right? 

  
“Jaylad, I think you ought to wait it out at the Manor.” Jason tilted his head to the side, a bit like a puppy. Jaylad? Bruce hadn’t called him Jaylad for a few years now. And why would Jason wait out this sickness at the Manor? He would just infect the rest of the family.

“Why? I’ll be fine in a couple of days-” Jason started.

“Just to be on the safe side, Jason. Please.” Bruce begged, interrupting his son.

“You know something,” Jason observed. He was delirious, sick, and fevering, but he knew when his father was hiding something. 

“Not much, but enough for me not to want you waiting it out here. C’mon, Jason.” 

Maybe it was immature, but Jason lifted his arms into the sky as though he were a toddler and not a twenty-two year old.

And maybe Bruce was fostering that maturity, but he picked Jason up like a toddler and carried him into the backseat of the Jeep he had driven there. Jason sprawled against the leather seats, their cold calming him after the burning of his skin, and Bruce’s heart broke. “Go to sleep, Jason. I’ll wake you at the Manor.”

“Thanks, dad,” Jason mumbled, drifting into sleep.


	2. Identification

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The family finds out about Jason, and they don't know what else to do but help.

The drive from Jason's apartment back to the Manor was longer than expected. At this point, Bruce had come to terms with the fact that Ra's, despite being an awful person who had damn near killed his entire family in increments, was not lying about Jason being sick. All the while, his second oldest son was tossing fitfully in his sleep. 

Arriving at the Manor was not as simple as he thought. Bruce supposed he had hoped that no one would question why Jason was being carried by him, or why he was sick. These were the immediate questions he heard coming face-to-face with his pseudo-father. 

"Is Master Jason doing alright?" Alfred had asked, and although he just shook his head no, Bruce wanted to laugh, because honestly? He had no idea. He didn't know the severity of the illness, he didn't know what to call it, and he didn't know how it would affect Jason. Because, of course, _his eyes_ , but Jason hadn't seemed much worse than any time he had the flu, as far as his mental state. 

It was as though his very thoughts had made it worse because as they laid his, mostly sleeping, son on a cot in the Med Bay, he began to cough. And the coughs weren't bad at first, but as Jason grew conscious, it got worse. he was coughing up blood, mixed with green slime. 

"Call the family," Bruce told Alfred. It wasn't a question, because Bruce couldn't solve this on his own. 

It was Dick who showed up first, taking off his Police Force vest and overcoat, leaving him in a pale blue dress shirt, which he rolled the sleeves up on the farther into the house he got. 

"I came as soon as I heard, is everything alright?" Dick asked, his light blue eyes stared at Bruce, and god why did he always do this to himself? His oldest son was not Jason, and he forced himself to remember that, as he had in the days after Jason's death, before Tim came into the fold.

"Jason is sick, from the Lazarus Pit. We don't know if this could kill him or not and I need the entire family here so we can save him." Bruce had always spoken most easily to Dick. Dick was the one who had met him back when he was a twenty-four-year-old. One who quipped and had fun and solved crimes that weren't nearly as big of a deal. He wasn't that man anymore, but Dick was. Dick was his son who had always been his shining example, and he felt bad for that. It wasn't fair on any of his kids, even Dick. Sometimes Bruce worried that he had accidentally made Dick a secondary parent instead of the oldest child. 

“What?” Dick asked, shaking his head no as tears formed in his eyes because this was not happening. Not little wing. Not his baby brother. “But he’s gonna be okay, right? We’re gonna save him in the nick of time and we’ll laugh about this later?” Dick asked.

Bruce put his arms on his son’s shoulders to steady him, and _god_ , why did all his boys look so young today. “I hope so, chum. I really hope so.” 

The family arrived in packs after that, and fast.

Kate, Helena, and Tim first. 

Then Damian being driven by Barbara, with a frightened Duke alongside them.

Harper with Steph and Cass.

Claire, Bette, and Carrie practically stumbling through the door.

And the Fox family following, Tiff and Tam arguing while Luke looked incredibly bored, and Lucius’ eye was twitching.

Leslie Thompkins smiling gently at every family member, and yet not interacting.

Nell Little and Maps Mizoguchi, sharing photos and secrets and phone numbers alike.

Julia, who exchanged pleasantries with her father, smiling all the while.

And lastly, his wife. Selina. Who knows what she had been doing all day. Bruce felt inclined not to ask.

When Bruce told them Jason was possibly going to die again, there were varying degrees of concern, the most heavily on the spectrum being Cassandra and Carrie crying, one far louder than the other, and you can most likely guess who.

“Is there anything we can do?” Barbara asked, her worry colouring her face as she gripped tightly onto Dick.

“I’m not sure, Barbara.”

“Maybe Babs and I could find a cure?” Tim proposed. 

“I should help find the cure, I am a med student,” Tiffany responded to the open question.

Tam spoke as well, only after her sister had finished. “I’ll be more help there as well.” 

“Damian and I can travel to Nanda Parbat, to get samples off Ra’s and the Pit.” Dick volunteered, his hand skyrocketing as if he were in a classroom.

“Well then some of us should be taking over patrol shifts. We still have to protect Gotham,” And if anyone surprised Bruce by saying this, it was Stephanie. Especially because she was incredibly close to Jason.

“Steph?” Asked Tim, clearly just as taken aback.

“Look, I’m not connected to the Al-Ghuls, and I’m not smart enough to find a cure, so the least I can do is look after Gotham while _you guys_ do that stuff."

“Jason will need constant monitoring. I assume Julia and Alfred will be up to the task, but we will need more-”

“I can help!” Came the chirpy voice of fifteen-year-old Penelope Little, interrupting Dr. Thompkins.

“Dear, this task requires a bit more-”

“I am a nursing student. I can help!” Nell repeated, more insistent this time.

“I fear I haven’t been built for the battlefield in a long time,” Carrie said, a nostalgic smile across her face. “And I was Robin in between Dick and Jay. I should make myself useful.”

And from there, there was an explosion of negotiation on who should do what to help their brother. 

Kate crept up next to her cousin, looking at her girlfriend in the crowd of family. “Are you proud of them, Bruce?” Kate had asked him. And it was a sincere question. Kate had only one adoptive daughter in Bette, but all of these kids were Bruce’s.

And Bruce nodded in response to her question because he was. Bruce was proud, looking out at his family. Each of them wanted to help save Jason. Each of them wanted to be useful. If ever you needed to see what Bruce was most proud of it was this. His family was his Magnum Opus. His legacy. There was no accomplishment greater than the people in this room. Each and every one filled with the desire to help people and protect their own. 


End file.
